Monday, October 27, 2014

Last week, a dear mom in my Mommy and Me group walked into
class looking drained and about to cry. “Sophia has forgotten how to
sleep!She was sleeping 9 hours
straight, but in the last 4 nights, she’s been waking up every two hours from
midnight on! I’m losing my mind I’m so tired. I thought her sleep would keep
getting better but now it’s like she’s a newborn again!”

We’ve heard a version of this countless times before. It’s
classic sleep regression—something we call the ‘cognitive surge,’ when babies become
more awake, more discerning and better able to detect patterns (good news for
their smart brains, bad news for their sleep patterns). This new alertness feels very novel and
exciting to them at first and makes it hard for them to fall back to sleep
easily during the night.

Here are some important ideas to keep in mind when sleep
seems to have gone off the rails and you’re working to get it back on track:

Don’t assume you have
a “bad sleeper”! Waking up at night is rarely a sign that your baby is an
inherently bad sleeper—it’s a sign that her sleep patterns need adjusting. In
an interesting baby study, researchers asked parents if they had a “good
sleeper” or “bad sleeper,” and then they observed those babies to see how many
times they woke during the night.Surprise, both groups woke exactly
the same amount.The difference was that
the “good sleepers” were used to falling asleep on their own, whereas the “bad
sleepers” were in the habit of reaching out for help falling back to
sleep.Both groups have all the brain
power needed to fall asleep independently and sleep well at night; the
difference was the babies’ expectations and habits.

Ride the hump. Your baby is so much smarter and aware now—she has a new level of consciousness
and there’s so much to do, see, and test out!But this new excitement will wear off eventually, and she will go back
to sleeping. The silver lining of sleep regressions is that they often signal
your baby’s blooming abilities and smarts. She just needs time to adjust and
for you to resist changing up your patterns and behaviors too much—you should
be steady and she’ll come back around.

Make sure you’re not
overhelping. The most common problem with sleep regression is that parents
automatically start helping, helping, and then overhelping. When your baby was a wee thing, all that helping and
soothing was what she needed. After 5 months or so, babies don’t need so much
help—in fact, they need more space to practice their self-soothing.At this
point, parents’ helping ways can start to get in the way of a good nights sleep.
Signs of overhelping are when an older baby starts…

·Waking more rather than less during the night

Adding new nighttime feeds

Taking longer and longer to fall asleep

Resisting your help (rocking, feeding, holding
etc.)

Popping awake after 45 – 60 minutes

Waking up way too early in the morning

Hold tight to your
routines and schedule. Babies are highly sensitive to routine and timing.
When you’re seeing sleep derail a bit, make sure your baby is going to bed at
the right time (usually between 7-8pm is ideal), falling asleep independently
(on her own, without you feeding or rocking her to sleep) and at the same time
every night. Hold on to her nap schedules too. Ironically, overtired babies are
more likely to wake up at night because their systems become wound up and
dysregulated.

Hang in there. Even though they seem endless at the time,
sleep regressions—whether they’re from new cognitive leaps or motor
milestones—will eventually pass.

Whether you have a sleep regression on your hands, or just
want help smoothing the way to better sleep for your baby, we’ll see you at The
Happy Sleeper class for babies 5-18 months (although all ages are welcome). You’ll
come away with a clear and gentle plan for turning over the soothing to sleep
role to your very capable baby, so everyone in the family can get a full
night’s sleep.